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The global energy industry is transforming as governments invest in clean energy technologies to address climate change, enhance energy security, and strengthen national competitiveness. Comparative research on clean energy transitions highlights the domestic drivers and constraints of clean energy transitions. This article contends that we need to understand the effects of global interdependence on clean energy transitions. Shifts in forms of interdependence between firms—influenced by the rise of global supply chains—have new implications for policy choices made by governments. Governments face more complex demands from domestic industries facing global economic competition, and act strategically in response to the actions of other governments, including sub-national actors, and firms in the global economy. We suggest that research on interdependence in clean energy transitions benefits from an analytical focus on mechanisms of transnational change such as cross-national and multi-level policy feedback and cross-national policy sequencing. Global interdependence has important implications for economic and environmental outcomes, affecting the durability of competitive advantage, and influencing the pace of the diffusion of clean energy technologies.

Network analysis has typically examined the formation of whole networks while neglecting variation within or across networks. These approaches neglect the particular roles actors may adopt within networks. While cross-sectional approaches for inferring latent roles exist, there is a paucity of approaches for considering roles in longitudinal networks. This paper explores the conceptual dynamics of temporally observed roles while deriving and introducing a novel statistical tool, the ego-TERGM, capable of uncovering these latent dynamics. Estimated through an Expectation–Maximization algorithm, the ego-TERGM is quick and accurate in classifying roles within a broader temporal network. An application to the Kapferer strike network illustrates the model’s utility.

An interdependence approach to empathic concern could transform the current societal environment for people with disability into a more accessible and equitable one. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate two possible factors influencing empathic concern, gender and ethnic culture, in specific helping scenarios. We first examined whether the female gender and collectivist culture of Japan were associated with higher levels of interdependence and empathic concern for disability than were the male gender and individualist culture of New Zealand. Empathic concern for people with impairment was assessed in accessible and inaccessible environments. Neither gender nor culture significantly influenced the level of interdependence, whereas gender and culture differentially moderated empathic concern. We also explored the possibility of altering self-construal and thus promoting prosocial behaviour by examining the correlation between self-construal and prosocial intention, and the effect of cultural priming on self-construal. The correlation was significant under inaccessible conditions in the Japanese sample, and the effect of interdependent priming was not significant on interdependent self-construal in both countries. Discussion centres on theoretical implications of the observed conditional support for the female-gender and collectivist-culture hypotheses, and on ways to promote prosocial behaviour, taking into account gender and cultural differences.

A core set of assumptions in economic modeling is that rational agents, who have a defined preference set, assess their options and determine which best satisfies their preferences. The rational actor model supposes that the world provides us with a menu of options, and we simply choose what’s best for us. Agents are independent of one another, and they can rationally assess which of their options they wish to pursue. This gives special authority to the choices that people make, since they are understood to be the outcomes of the agent’s considered judgments. However, we have come to see that the independence assumption does not always hold in the way that we may have initially thought. Social norms can govern our choices even when we disagree with them. Here we can begin to see how the standard model of choice and agency begins to weaken: no longer are my choices wholly mine, but instead there is a subset of choices that are governed by the broader culture that I live in. Social norms constrain my behavior with informal coercion — my desire to remain a community member in good standing requires me to behave in accordance with the community’s social norms. What I wish to challenge more substantively is the claim that the menu of choices agents “see” is in fact the objective set of options that is transparently provided by the world. Instead, I argue that the options that people perceive and the evidence they use to make choices are mediated by perspectives. Perspectives can importantly interact with social norms to make some norms more resilient to change, and others harder to adopt. This further shapes both our descriptive and normative understanding of agency. Our choices are not over all of the objectively available options, but over the options that we can see. The evidence we marshal to support our choices is not the full set of evidence, but the evidence that we recognize as salient. This is not to deny that individuals have agency, but rather we need a more nuanced understanding of the nature of this agency.

Between 1980 and 2008, two Pacific island nations – Nauru and the Cook Islands – experienced the fastest rates of increasing BMI in the world. Rates were over four times higher than the mean global BMI increase. The aim of the present paper is to examine why these populations have been so prone to obesity increases in recent times.

Design

Three explanatory frames that apply to both countries are presented: (i) geographic isolation and genetic predisposition; (ii) small population and low food production capacity; and (iii) social change under colonial influence. These are compared with social changes documented by anthropologists during the colonial and post-colonial periods.

Setting

Nauru and the Cook Islands.

Results

While islands are isolated, islanders are interconnected. Similarly, islands are small, but land use is socially determined. While obesity affects individuals, islanders are interdependent. New social values, which were rapidly propagated through institutions such as the colonial system of education and the cash economy, are today reflected in all aspects of islander life, including diet. Such historical social changes may predispose societies to obesity.

Conclusions

Colonial processes may have put in place the conditions for subsequent rapidly escalating obesity. Of the three frameworks discussed, social change under colonial influence is not immutable to further change in the future and could take place rapidly. In theorising obesity emergence in the Pacific islands, there is a need to incorporate the idea of obesity being a product of interdependence and interconnectedness, rather than independence and individual choice.

Recent studies have indicated that it is important to investigate the interaction between task interdependence and task autonomy because this interaction can affect team effectiveness. However, only a limited number of studies have been conducted and those studies focused solely on the team level of analysis. Moreover, there has also been a dearth of theoretical development. Therefore, this study develops and tests an alternative theoretical perspective in an attempt to understand if, and if so why, this interaction is important at the individual level of analysis. Based on interdependence theory and power-dependence theory, we expected that highly task-interdependent individuals who reported high task autonomy would be more powerful and better performers. In contrast, we expected that similarly high task-interdependent individuals who reported less task autonomy would be less powerful and would be weaker performers. These expectations were supported by multi-level and bootstrapping analyses performed on a multi-source dataset (self-, peer-, manager-ratings) comprised of 182 employees drawn from 37 teams. More specifically, the interaction between task interdependence and task autonomy was γ =.128, p <.05 for power and γ =.166, p <.05 for individual performance. The 95% bootstrap interval ranged from .0038 to .0686.

Many of the most important properties of human groups – including properties that may give one group an evolutionary advantage over another – are properly defined only at the level of group organization. Yet at present, most work on the evolution of culture has focused solely on the transmission of individual-level traits. I propose a conceptual extension of the theory of cultural evolution, particularly related to the evolutionary competition between cultural groups. The key concept in this extension is the emergent group-level trait. This type of trait is characterized by the structured organization of differentiated individuals and constitutes a unit of selection that is qualitatively different from selection on groups as defined by traditional multilevel selection (MLS) theory. As a corollary, I argue that the traditional focus on cooperation as the defining feature of human societies has missed an essential feature of cooperative groups. Traditional models of cooperation assume that interacting with one cooperator is equivalent to interacting with any other. However, human groups involve differential roles, meaning that receiving aid from one individual is often preferred to receiving aid from another. In this target article, I discuss the emergence and evolution of group-level traits and the implications for the theory of cultural evolution, including ramifications for the evolution of human cooperation, technology, and cultural institutions, and for the equivalency of multilevel selection and inclusive fitness approaches.

The massive arrival in Spain of students of immigrant origin has visibly altered
the traditional configuration of schools, where ethnic, cultural and linguistic
diversity is becoming increasingly manifest. This situation is worth being
mentioned insofar as it affects all the different autonomous communities in the
country, even more clearly Catalonia, where the educational system is organized
under the parameters of bilingual education. One of the theoretical constructs
supporting this educational model is the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis,
developed by Jim Cummins at the beginning of the 1980s. According to the author,
whenever the instruction in a given language (Lx) takes place
under certain conditions, competence acquired in this language can be
transferred onto another (Ly). Bearing this theoretical
construct in mind, our study focuses on a sample of 237 Spanish-speaking
subjects (123 native and 114 immigrant students) who completed a series of
parallel tests evaluating their skills in Catalan and Spanish. Drawing on the
data analyzed we can conclude that the Hypothesis accounts for the results in
both native and immigrant students with the same L1.

From its inception, ASEAN has been shaped by the evolving structure of the international system and the activities of more powerful external actors. This is still the case. What is different now is that the nature of the region of which ASEAN is a part has changed in significant ways. Indeed, the entire structure of the international system has undergone a number of profoundly important changes which have forced ASEAN to adjust and recalibrate its own policies. This paper explores this adjustment process and maps the most important forces and actors that are compelling change. By placing the ASEAN experience in a comparative conceptual framework, it becomes possible to identify the key drivers of change and to speculate about their future impact on an organisation that has proved remarkably resilient thus far. The nature of contemporary regional developments and the continuing evolution of the wider international system mean that ASEAN is currently facing major new challenges and questions about its relevance in an era when other regional organisations are emerging to challenge its authority and role.

This article examines the utility of the concept of resilience to the field of critical gerontology. Resilience is an increasingly popular concept within the social sciences. We explore some key ideas about individual and social resilience from varied fields, and propose new ways to conceptualise these in relation to resilience in later life. This article examines the history of the concept of resilience; explores some of the diverse ways that gerontologists are attempting to apply it to later life; and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of using resilience as a conceptual framework within critical ageing research. We also suggest ways of conceptualising resilience and ageing, highlighting the different scales of resilience that impact on the ability of older people to negotiate adversity, and some key areas of resilience relevant to later life. The example of mobility resilience is used to illustrate how different scales of resilience operate within an area of resilience central to the ageing experience. Finally, some key principles for the use of resilience within critical gerontology are outlined, providing guidance on how to maximise the potential of the concept whilst avoiding some of the limitations associated with its historical usage.

Remaining at home in older age is generally considered a sign of independence and therefore an important achievement. More than five million Americans aged over 75 years live alone, a number that is destined to increase thanks to advances in longevity. Living alone can allow the expression of one's preferences, but it can also bring out hardships hardly visible to outsiders, especially in an individualistic society such as the United States of America that rewards self-sufficiency. According to the sociologist Rose, in neo-liberal societies citizens have a duty to be free, self-reliant and independent. In this paper, Rose's theory and the political economy perspective serve as frameworks by which to examine how discourses around independence are translated in the experiences of 22 older adults aged over 75 living at home alone in the Bay Area of San Francisco. Participant observation and 41 in-depth interviews from 2006 to 2010 illustrate how being independent can be an essential component of individual identities. The informants' narratives shed light on the impact of policies that facilitate or regulate the moral imperative of independence. The findings underline the need to assess how discourses around independence are translated in minority populations, to promote studies and initiatives on interdependence, and to encourage international comparisons on living alone in older age.

This study aimed to investigate characteristics of Brazilian mothers' beliefs system, in the dimensions of autonomy and interdependence. A group of 600 women, half from state capitals and half from small towns, participated in the study. They were individually interviewed with Scales of Allocentrism, Beliefs about Parental Practices and Socialization Goals. Paired and Independent samples t tests and Multivariate GLM were performed. The results indicate that although mothers from both contexts value autonomy, mothers inhabiting small towns considered the relational dimension as the most important; whereas mothers inhabiting capitals valued equally both dimensions, either in their beliefs about practices or in the socialization goals for their children. Mothers from small towns have a higher mean score for allocentrism than mothers living in capitals. Thus, place of residence proved to be a relevant variable in the modulation of maternal beliefs. Educational level was not a significant factor in the variables considered and with this group of mothers. The study results are discussed in terms of their contribution to the understanding of the complex relationship between dimensions of autonomy and interdependence in mothers' beliefs system.

This paper argues that fear of aging can more precisely be recognized as a fear of disability and that fear of disability can be centrally understood as a fear of dependence. Accordingly, we are not likely to see old people being treated as important members of society until we see a change in attitudes towards disability. The argument is developed with reference to a consideration of attitudes toward and treatment of elders and people with disabilities, a consideration of the social construction of dependency, and an examination of statistics on the Canadian population of people with disabilities. The ubiquity of disability across all age groups means that there needs to be a re-conceptualization of disability as part of the human experience.

Developmental contexts have been studied in terms of systems of beliefs and practices, treated as part of general cultural models. This paper aims to describe aspects of parenting cultural models of a group of 200 primiparous Brazilian mothers from Rio de Janeiro, who had children less than 44 months old. Mothers answered the Socialization Goals Interview (SGI), and an adapted version of an inventory of beliefs about practices of care, developed by M. Suizzo. Answers to the SGI were coded in five categories and their subcategories: Self-maximization (SM), Self-control (SC), Lovingness (L), Proper demeanor (PD) and Decency (D), and scores in each of them were calculated. A factor analysis indicated three dimensions of mothers' beliefs about practices: Awaking and exposing the child to diverse stimuli (Stimulation), ensuring the Proper presentation of the child and Responding to and bonding to the child. Data was further analyzed in terms of subcategories of SM and D and of the relation to the factors mothers' educational level and sex of their child. Results showed that mothers from Rio de Janeiro share a cultural model of autonomy for their children, but that they also believe in the importance of their relationship to others.

The debate over privatizing and water markets has moved back and forth for decades between the “I” and the “We” perspectives. Rather than either/or, a balanced “I&We” view of water institutions is needed. West is meeting east in water law. Public interest needs must be satisfied in appropriate decision forums, but marketing may prove a social improvement when used as a supplement. Balancing an “I&We” institution involves establishing an acceptable or tolerable level of interference through judicious mixing of state, common and private property regimes. Third-party effects are eliminated as mutual gain arises in a variety of decision forums.

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